Kind of Like a Treasure Hunt
by chelsc
Summary: Dr. Izzie Stevens finds a mysterious note in her locker that leads her on a trail of more notes, riddles, and a surprise at the end. My first attempt at writing FanFiction. R&R.
1. Monday

**Author's Note: This is my first attempt at writing FanFiction. I've always loved writing and am happy to finally be able to write a "real" piece of fiction and share it with others. Comments and constructive criticism are appreciated, especially regarding characterization. (I want to try and keep within the world of _Grey's Anatomy_ as much as possible.) Leave a review and let me know if you'd like me to continue. Thanks! :)**

**Additionally, anything and everything having to do with _Grey's Anatomy_ belongs to ABC. No copyright infringement intended.**

Dr. Isobel Stevens yawned as she opened the door to her locker at 5:37 that wintry Monday morning. She wasn't scheduled to begin the inevitably long day at Seattle Grace Hospital until 6:30, but she'd decided to come in early and catch up on the seemingly endless paperwork that was waiting for her in a pile at the nurse's station. Now, however, as her eyes drooped and her mouth continued to open involuntarily, she was slightly regretting the decision.

_I just need a coffee, and I'll be all right,_ she silently reassured herself.

The need for a caffeine boost was quickly eliminated, though, as something in her locker caught her eye. It was a piece of white paper that had been folded into quarters and placed on top of the latest edition of the _New England Journal of Medicine_. On the top flap that was facing up at her, someone had written her nickname, "Izzie," in a thin scrawl.

She stared at the piece of paper for several seconds, partially caught off guard by the mere presence of the object and partially baffled at the thought of someone leaving a note for her to find. Izzie loved her fellow residents like family, but the idea of one of them committing such an apparently childish act was absurd. It was completely reminiscent of middle school, when the only way a boy could declare his love for a girl was by leaving a note in her locker and hope she would circle "Yes" as an answer to his written question of "Will you go out with me?"

Doubting that this was a similar declaration of affection for her, Izzie gingerly picked up the piece of paper and opened it. Inside, penned in the same handwriting as her name, were five lines of text:

_I didn't get picked for scrubbing in__  
I'm really, really sad  
__I'll have to watch from up above  
Though it's surely not as rad_

_P.S. 2, front and center_

"A riddle…?" Izzie murmured to herself. She'd been right about the lack of amorous professions, at least. Still, she wasn't sure what to think: she'd never been good with word games, yet she could tell that this one had been crafted specifically to test her medical knowledge.

Her ponderings were abruptly interrupted by the sound of an all-too-familiar voice that made her jump and quickly shove the note into the pocket of her white lab coat.

"Stevens! Why are you here so early?" Dr. Miranda Bailey had appeared in the doorway and was looking at her suspiciously, her hands on her hips in her trademark "Nazi" pose.

"I…I'm sorry, Dr. Bailey. I was hoping to get some paperwork done before we started rounds," Izzie answered.

"Well, why aren't you doing it? It's quarter to six. You won't get anything done if you keep standing in here, staring at pieces of paper that probably have nothing to do with your job."

"Yes, Dr. Bailey," sighed Izzie. Dr. Bailey glanced at Izzie's lab coat pocket before walking out of the room, and Izzie quickly shut the door of her locker before heading towards the nurse's station. There, she found several charts that needed completing, and she began writing furiously in an attempt to keep the mysterious riddle out of her head.

About forty-five minutes and three successfully completed charts later, Izzie quit writing and began leading her interns around the Surgery floor to perform rounds. She tried her hardest to focus and ensure that they were doing everything right, but it was difficult with the riddle playing over and over again in her head and her desperately trying to discover its meaning. She knew that the first line was talking about surgery—that much was obvious—and that the second line was a perfect explanation of how any future surgeon would feel if they weren't chosen to scrub in and assist on an operation. She assumed that the fourth line wouldn't help if she didn't figure out the third, and the latter was what was perplexing her.

"Dr. Stevens? Are you all right?" One of the interns was looking at her worriedly, jolting Izzie out of her reverie.

"What? Yes, I...Who's presenting?" Izzie asked, attempting to reenter reality.

"I am," answered the same intern. "Patient is a twenty-seven-year-old male, self-admitted to the ER last night and complaining of headaches. CT showed no abnormalities…" The remainder of the patient's description seemed to flutter directly over Izzie's head, but she somehow managed to ask the intern the appropriate questions. Still, she was relieved when Dr. Derek Shepherd, the head of neurosurgery, entered the room and took over the discussion.

It was a slow morning at Seattle Grace: there were no surgeries scheduled until 10:00 AM, two of her interns were temporarily running the clinic, and the Emergency Room was lacking incoming traumas. This left Izzie wandering around the floor. She had never gotten her cup of coffee, so she decided to use the rare but short break to get a hold of some caffeine and finally figure out the meaning of the note that was burning a metaphorical hole in her coat pocket.

While she walked toward the coffee stand, she realized that she hadn't even considered _who_ might have left the piece of paper in her locker. She knew that she could definitely rule out Dr. Bailey, for she was simply too busy to even consider such a stunt. Neither Drs. Cristina Yang nor Alex Karev were an option either: both were too cynical. That left Drs. Meredith Grey and George O'Malley. Meredith was certainly "dark and twisty," but she could be a caring person when the situation called for it; though, Izzie couldn't imagine why Meredith would want to be so friendly now, when she had always been buddy-buddy with Cristina. George, on the other hand, was Izzie's best friend, and he knew that she had been going through a rough time with Alex, who had completely turned against her in an attempt to protect his psychologically damaged ex-girlfriend, Rebecca.

_It has to be George_, thought Izzie with a smile on her face. _I knew he could be there for me when I needed him_.

As she leaned against the railing of the walkway that spanned the length of the hospital's atrium, she returned to contemplating the meaning of the third line. _What do they mean, "watch from up above"? I'm not God, and I'm definitely not Houdini, so I know I can't magically hover above the operating table. Obviously. _Izzie knew that she was making this more difficult than it probably was.

"Hey, Izzie. Are you alive?" asked a woman's voice. Izzie looked up and saw Meredith standing in front of her.

"Oh, hi, Meredith. Um…yeah, I'm fine. Just daydreaming," Izzie replied. She wasn't sure if she wanted to reveal the somewhat-cheesy riddle to Meredith.

"About what?" insisted Meredith.

_Where's the harm? If she's the one that left the note, maybe she'll slip up_, Izzie thought.

"Well, it's this riddle. I…found it in this book of…medical word puzzles," Izzie lied. "I've been trying to figure it out all morning." The words sounded idiotic as they tumbled out of her mouth, but Meredith seemed to believe her.

"What's the riddle? I'm pretty good with word games," said Meredith.

"Oh, well…it goes like this." Izzie repeated the riddle to her friend and colleague and waited as Meredith absorbed what she'd said. Meredith's eyes narrowed, and she turned her head towards the ceiling as she began pondering the answer. After about thirty seconds, she looked at Izzie and smiled triumphantly.

"The _gallery_! It's talking about the gallery! You didn't get to scrub in on a surgery, so you're sad, and you have to watch it from somewhere else. The gallery is right above the operating room! And, it's definitely not as _rad_ as scrubbing in!" exclaimed Meredith.

Instantly, Izzie understood.

"God, you're right. I'm such an idiot, Meredith. Thank you," Izzie said, shaking her head in disbelief at her own inability to figure out something so simple.

"Sure. Though, I'm not sure what the last line is talking about. Anyway, I gotta go. I'm scrubbing in on Hahn's surgery at ten." Meredith ambled off towards Surgery, leaving Izzie to contemplate the last line of the riddle.

_2, front and center…2, front and center…_

Izzie wasn't entirely sure, but she guessed that the number was referring to which O.R.'s gallery she should go to. Not wanting to waste any more time, she quickly left the atrium, took the elevator to the Surgery floor, and half-ran to O.R. 2. Luckily, it was still before ten, so the gallery was empty. She stood at the window and gazed down into the room below. Even after years of hard work and preparation, there were still moments of disbelief when she could hardly accept that she had made it this far, that she was actually a _doctor_.

_Doctor Isobel Stevens._ The title rang like honey in her thoughts, sweetly coursing through all of the blood vessels in her brain. One thing Izzie had learned in medical school was that it took a special kind of person to become a physician, as evidenced by the numerous classmates she had watched suffer through lectures, fail exams, and ultimately drop out.

_I'm one of those special people. Me. The model. _Izzie smiled to herself before remembering that she was in the gallery for a reason. She was almost certain that she was in the right place, but what was she looking for?

"Something that's front and center…But what?" Izzie spoke under her breath. She continued to stand at the window of the gallery, in front of all the chairs, and tried to decipher the last and final part of the riddle.

Suddenly, it came to her. _Wait a minute…I AM front and center! I'm in the front and center of the room!_ Izzie silently exclaimed to herself. _But what's here? There's nothing here...unless…_

On an impulsive flash of insight, Izzie turned around and stared at the three rows of chairs in front of her. Starting at each end of the first row, she used her hands to count towards the center chair, and she took a step towards it. She looked all around the top and back of the chair but discovered nothing. Finally, she carefully tipped the chair towards the back wall to look underneath. Despite the strange placement of the note in her locker that morning, she was still surprised at what she found taped to the bottom of the chair.

It was another piece of paper, exactly the same as the one she had discovered earlier. The note was folded into fourths and had her name written in similar scribble on the top flap. Besides the obvious fact that it was addressed to her, Izzie knew that she was meant to find it. Unless someone was crawling underneath the chairs for no apparent reason, there was no way anyone else could have known it was there.

More curious than ever, Izzie grabbed the paper, opened it, and began to read.


	2. Crimson Red

**Author's Note: Thank you guys so much for the reviews on the last chapter! They were very supportive. Again, I encourage readers to leave comments and/or constructive criticism. If it's too long, too short, boring, starting to stray from the world of _Grey's Anatomy_, etc., don't hesitate to let me know. This is my first time writing fan fiction, so who knows what will happen! **

**Also, I wanted to intersperse a little medicine with the main storyline, so I apologize in advance to any disappointed readers who were expecting a lot of progress on Izzie's quest. I feel like this chapter isn't as exciting for that reason, but I hope you guys won't feel the same way. Don't worry--the next chapter will definitely have some development as far as Izzie's riddles are concerned. Anyway, enough of me rambling. Hope you like it! :)**

**P.S. I decided to copy off the show and make each chapter title a song title. You get a cookie if you can figure out the artists. ;)**

Izzie walked to the third bed in the row of makeshift rooms that were lined up against the windowed wall of the Denny Duquette Memorial Clinic. Lying down with his head against the pillow was a young boy with tousled, chestnut-brown hair, a slightly freckled nose, and strikingly deep blue eyes. Standing next to the bed was a woman with similarly colored hair and the same barely freckled nose as the boy, but her eyes were a pretty hazel. She was staring down at the boy, and Izzie instantly assumed the woman was the boy's mother, for she had a look of concern on her face that only a mom could possess.

As Izzie approached, the woman looked up.

"Are you the doctor?" she asked pleadingly.

"Yes, hi, I'm Dr. Stevens," Izzie answered, smiling. She put the patient's chart at the foot of the bed and turned to look at the boy. "And what's your name?"

"Jared," the boy replied without looking at Izzie.

"Jared Anderson. I'm his mother, Melissa Anderson," the woman said to Izzie.

"Can we go home now? I'm fine, Mom. Nothing is wrong with me!" Jared said loudly. Izzie ignored his apparent irritation for now, but she was surprised at how he had called Mrs. Anderson "Mom." Izzie knew from reading his chart that the boy was only seven years old, and she thought that kids generally reached the double digits in age before they ceased calling their parents "Mommy" and "Daddy." Still, she managed to hide her astonishment and continue with the examination that four years of medical school and a year of training with the Nazi had taught her how to do so proficiently.

"Well, Jared, I'm sure your mom brought you in here for a pretty good reason. Can you tell me why she did?" Izzie asked. She also knew from reading Jared's chart that Melissa had brought him to the clinic for bleeding on his knee, but that simple description was never enough to make a diagnosis. Plus, she liked talking to people, and it came as no surprise that she was known around the hospital as the doctor who always "gets too involved with the patients."

Suddenly, she involuntarily conjured an image of Denny Duquette—her former fiancé whom she had unintentionally killed by cutting his LVAD wire—in her head. Izzie fought back the dull stab of pain she felt in her stomach at the thought of him and forced herself to brush it aside. Though she was certain that the heartache would never completely disappear, it had diminished enough that she managed not to cry on every occasion where she envisioned his handsome countenance in her mind. This time, she quickly began focusing all her attention on Jared and kicked Denny off her proverbial thought train, waiting for the boy's answer to her question.

A few seconds passed before he replied. "No! I'm fine! I just want to go home," Jared huffed.

"His knee is bleeding, and it won't stop," Melissa said. "I mean, it stopped, you know, for a while. But, it started again. He fell this past Friday. He was at school, playing with the other kids on the swings, and he jumped off the swing, and he landed on his knee. Well, not fully on his knee, because I guess it would be broken or something, but he hit his knee really hard, and it was on gravel, so it was scraped up pretty bad."

"Did the school nurse take care of it?" Izzie inquired, glancing at Jared, who was still refusing to look at the doctor.

"Yeah, of course. I mean, they called me and told me what had happened, but I was at work. I work at a restaurant, and I couldn't leave, and they said it wasn't that serious, that they would just clean it up and give him a big bandage and that I didn't have to pick him up or anything."

"Okay. So he was fine until this morning?"

"Well, yeah. I put a new bandage on his knee on Saturday and Sunday because they were getting really wet every time he took a bath, so I gave him new ones, and it seemed like it was healing all right, I guess. But, then, this morning, I went to give him another one and put some Neosporin on it, and I noticed that he was bleeding again, and the blood had soaked through the old bandage, and I thought it was kind of weird and that maybe he needed stitches or something, so I brought him here." As she rambled, the concerned mother's eyes deepened with worry.

"Yeah, and it's stupid, because I'm fine," Jared repeated.

"He's pretty smart, for a seven-year-old, I mean. They put him in the third grade, a year ahead, and he's always surprising the teachers at cool with how smart he is. They think he might be able to skip another grade!" Melissa exclaimed fondly.

Izzie smiled at the proud mother and then turned to Jared.

"Jared, I know you really don't want to be here, but do you mind if I just take a quick peek at your knee? I promise I'm not going to hurt you."

Jared finally turned his head to look at the physician with a look on his face that Izzie couldn't decipher.

"Fine," he answered tersely. He moved the jacket that had been covering his legs to hold it against his chest. When he did so, Izzie instantly noticed the somewhat circular blood stain the left knee of his blue jeans, about two inches in diameter.

_Damn_, she thought. After taking two gloves out of the box that was on top of the stand next to the bed and putting them on, she rolled up the leg of Jared's jeans past his knee, exposing a large piece of white gauze taped to it that was covering the wound. The gauze may as well have been nonexistent, however, for it was completely soaked through with blood. _And he said nothing was wrong with him…_

"Okay, I'm going to pull the bandage off as carefully as I can. This might hurt a little, but try and be still, all right?" Izzie politely ordered the young boy.

"Yes," Jared responded, watching the doctor closely as she began slowly pulling at the tape. He failed to hide a grimace at the deep cut that showed itself when Izzie lifted up the gauze. It was fairly ovular, about an inch and a half long, but Izzie couldn't tell if it was still bleeding freely because of the amount of already-dried blood that had hardened onto the boy's skin. She took a small white cloth off of the stand and commenced wiping the knee, and Jared continued closely examining her movements.

"Does that hurt, Jared?" Izzie questioned.

"No," Jared replied listlessly.

Izzie put a small amount of pressure on the wound, and the child yelled, "OW!" His fingers clenched onto the jacket he was holding, and Izzie felt his leg tense up in pain.

_I knew he was lying_, she thought. When she finished wiping off the dried blood, she inspected the cut more thoroughly and watched with interest as fresh blood began gradually reddening the skin she had just cleaned.

"Mrs. Anderson, has this ever happened before?" she asked the mother.

"No, I mean, he's gotten cut before, but never this bad. He plays around a lot, you know, but he's never fallen like that, not that hard, anyway. He gets bumps and bruises, but never anything this bad," Melissa answered.

"Jared, are you feeling dizzy at all?"

"No, I'm not. Look, can you just stitch me up so that I can go home?" The child was staring at her intensely, and Izzie had the fleeting feeling that he was gazing straight into her soul.

_Oh, God. He's seven years old. I need to get over myself_, she mentally chided herself.

"I'm going to stitch up your knee for you, Jared, but I want to make sure there's nothing else wrong with you before you go home. Is that okay?" Izzie felt completely silly asking him for permission, but she had been educated to make kids feel like they were in control. They were more amenable that way.

He gave her a quick nod before laying his head back onto the pillow and fixing his eyes on the ceiling, obviously not wanting to observe the ordeal.

Izzie walked to the supply closet and came back carrying a medium-sized bottle of saline and a #2-0 atraumatic needle with suture. She then took another small white cloth off the stand next to the bed and began alternating between dabbing the excess blood off the child's knee and washing it with the saline solution. Melissa had sat down in the chair that was placed against the wall and was watching Izzie in silence. After she was done cleaning the cut as best she could, annoyed that it would not stop bleeding but unable to prevent it until she finished stitching, she opened the suture package, took out the needle, and began working.

As she effortlessly started on the simple procedure, Izzie's mind began to wander to the two pieces of paper that were sitting idly in her lab coat pocket. She had forcibly pushed them out of her brain until now, wanting to return to "work mode" and not contemplate ridiculous notes that somebody was leaving for her. Still, she couldn't help but think about them now, especially when she was carrying out something as perfunctory as stitching a cut.

After she had found the second one in the gallery above O.R. Two, her pager had gone off, and she had made a beeline for the nurse's station, where her Chief Resident was waiting for her, looking more annoyed than usual.

"Dr. Stevens. Where have you been?" Dr. Bailey had asked impatiently.

"Sorry, Dr. Bailey. I was—" Izzie didn't have the chance to finish her apology before Dr. Bailey went off on one of her usual tirades that she and her fellow residents had grown so accustomed to.

"You do know that you have two of your interns running your clinic right now? Two pathetic, just-got-out-of-med-school-and-really-have-no-idea-what-they're-doing interns who think way too highly of themselves and thus make way too many mistakes? I know I didn't spend a year training you to be an idiot, so why on earth did you do something as idiotic as let two interns take over your clinic?"

"Right. Idiotic. Sorry about that, Dr. Bailey. Never going to be idiotic like that again." Izzie smiled, knowing that apologies were pretty useless with the Nazi, but she never failed to craft one anyway. She shuffled off towards the clinic and had immediately been greeted by one of the nurses at the station who proceeded to hand her the chart for the young boy whose knee she was currently stitching.

Izzie was on her third stitch, about halfway up the wound, when the message written on the second piece of paper she'd found started playing on repeat in her head.

_First: Where do cows live?__  
Second: Where do ships live?  
Put it together._

At first, she had been somewhat curious as to why the author had written three lines of non-rhyming sentences instead of another miniature poem, but then she decided that it really wasn't as important as both figuring out what this new riddle meant and who was the Joker behind them.

Izzie's problem with this one wasn't discerning the answers to the questions; rather, it was putting those answers together to form something coherent. She'd contemplated _farm_, _barn_, _shed_, and _field_ as the solution to where cows live, but trying to combine any of those with something like _port_, _harbor_ or _dock_—where ships "live"—just didn't make any sense. As far as she knew, _farmport_, _sheddock_, and _barnharbor_ were not listed entries in the English dictionary.

"Jared? Are you asleep? Jared, wake up!"

Izzie was on her fifth stitch when she glanced up to see Melissa standing over her apparently asleep son, an expression of pure panic on her face.


	3. Into the Fire

**Author's Note: Hi, guys! Thank you so much for the reviews on the last chapter! :) Sorry for the delay in updating: school has been crazy lately. I have a huge Organic Chemistry exam this week (yikes!), so I had to make this one a bit shorter, but I wanted to get _something_ out, at least. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and don't hesitate to review. Oh, and, great job to the readers who figured out what the second riddle meant. ;)**

Izzie jumped up from her chair and immediately noticed that the boy was pale and that his chest was rising and falling rapidly. She placed her stethoscope to his chest and listened. _He's tachycardic_. She half-ran to the nearest supply closet, seized the syringe she was looking for, and darted back to Jared's bed, where his mother was panicking.

"What's wrong with him? Why isn't he saying anything? _What are you giving him?!_" Melissa almost shouted, frantically watching the physician as she injected Jared in a vein in his arm.

"Mrs. Anderson, your son's heart is beating too quickly. I'm giving him a dose of verapamil, which will slow his heart down for now, but it won't last. I need to figure out why he's…" Izzie trailed off as she noticed the small area of skin that had been exposed by Jared's shirt shifting up slightly when she had moved his arm to inject the medicine. What should have been a normal skin color was a mixture of black and blue. Izzie lifted up the boy's shirt more and saw a relatively large area of bruising covering the bottom left side of the boy's abdomen. _What the hell?_

"Oh, my God," Melissa gasped.

"Mrs. Anderson, do you know how this happened?"

"I…Oh, my God…"

"Mrs. Anderson, I know you are scared right now, but I need you to tell me how this happened. Your son's life may depend on it."

"He…I think…Last night…Last night, he ran into the table. The end table next to the couch in our living room. I panicked, but he didn't cry or anything, and it was just a little bump, and he kept insisting he was fine, so I didn't think anything of it. He dresses himself now, so I didn't even notice. Oh, my God, is he all right? _What did I do?!_" Melissa covered her open mouth with her hand and began shaking her head in worry.

_Jesus. What is wrong with…? _Izzie glanced down at the wound on the boy's knee, which was still bleeding profusely, and back up at the boy's stomach.

_Oh, God. _"Mrs. Anderson, we need to get your son to surgery. Now," Izzie insisted. "I need a gurney over here!" she yelled.

"Surgery? What? What on—" Melissa looked even more terrified than ever, something Izzie didn't think was possible.

"Mrs. Anderson, please just follow me," Izzie interrupted. "I'll explain on the way." A nurse came over with a gurney, and he and Izzie carefully moved the boy from the bed to the transport. "We need to get him to surgery as quickly as possible," she instructed to the nurse, and the pair began walking towards the elevator, the unconscious boy's mother frenetically following them.

As they passed the nurse's station, where a female nurse was sitting at one of the computers, Izzie turned to her and ordered, "Call O.R. 1, and tell them we have a six-year-old hemophiliac with internal abdominal injuries on the way. And page Dr. Bailey!" The nurse nodded and picked up the phone.

While they were moving, Izzie turned to look at Melissa. "Mrs. Anderson, your son has hemophilia. When he ran into the end table last night, it should have been a normal bruise that healed within a week. But, his body can't heal injuries properly, and he's bleeding internally. That blood loss, combined with the bleeding from his knee injury, caused him to faint. We need to operate to assess the internal damage and repair it. We'll also be giving him medicine to help his body heal." Izzie saw Melissa turn white, and she smiled. "I know it sounds completely scary, but he should be fine. You're at a great hospital."

"But…But I don't have health insurance. I'm a waitress. That's why I came to the clinic in the first place. How am I supposed to pay for this?" Melissa cried.

"Don't worry about that for now," Izzie reassured her. "We need to focus on getting your son healthy again."

Finally, they reached the surgery floor, and Izzie instructed the panicked mother to sit in the waiting area. "I promise that we're going to do everything we can, Mrs. Anderson. This isn't a complicated or difficult surgery. He's in good hands."

"Th-thank you, Dr. Stevens," Melissa stammered. She sat down slowly into one of the plush yet somewhat uncomfortable chairs, her face still pallid and full of fright.

At that moment, Izzie couldn't help but feel a sudden wave of empathy for Melissa. Though she had given up her daughter, Hannah, years ago, she could still vividly imagine what it would be like to learn that your child is chronically ill, that you have no control over it, that you can't perform some simple "mommy magic" and fix it with a Band-Aid. When Hannah's adoptive parents brought her in to Seattle Grace and informed Izzie that she had leukemia, Izzie instantly felt helplessness and fear for the daughter that she barely knew. It is one of the worst feelings a parent can suffer, probably second only to actually losing a child.

Izzie turned to the nurse that was waiting with the gurney carrying Jared. "I'll be right there. Go on ahead." She walked a few steps over to where Melissa was sitting, kneeled down in front of her, and took her hands in her own. "Mrs. Anderson, I understand how scary this is for you, and although we can never promise anything, I can _almost_ promise you that your son will be okay, and he will be able to live a happy, normal life. This is not your fault. You love your son, and that is enough. I'll be out as soon as it's over, okay?"

Melissa, who had begun crying silently, nodded, and Izzie smiled. She stood up and resumed her path towards O.R. 1.

It only took five steps, however, for Izzie to stop.

_The _sea! _Ships live in the sea, too! Then, that means…farm…sea…Pharmacy!_ Izzie chuckled to herself. She couldn't believe how simple the answer to the second riddle was, yet it had taken her quite a while to figure it out. _This is why baking is my forte_, she thought, grinning.

Giddy with both victory at solving the puzzle and anticipation at saving a life, Izzie put on her scrub cap, vigorously washed her hands and arms, and walked through the doors of the Operating Room.


	4. The New Year

**A/N: Hi, everyone. Sorry for the delay again: school has been ridiculous lately, and I had a pretty bad case of writer's block for a while. :( But, I'm excited about where the story is at and where it's going, so I'll be writing more often (I think). As always, comments/criticism are much appreciated. Hope you enjoy!**

Izzie pushed open the door to Joe's bar at exactly 8:00 later that evening. She was exhausted, but she could not stop smiling.

Jared's surgery had gone perfectly, and Izzie was filled with delight and accomplishment when she saw the gratuitous and relieved expression on Melissa's face. It was a feeling of elation that she experienced every time she saved a life, and one that she remembered in order to survive her toughest days.

"I can't begin to thank you, Dr. Stevens," the mother had said. "And, I'm sorry if he was a bit rude. Ever since his father died, he has tried so hard to be tough, even when it comes to injuries."

"It's okay. He'll be fine now."

After finishing up with her patient, Izzie had half-run to the pharmacy, eager to obtain her next clue. There, the pharmacist, Dr. Sandra Lyons, had greeted Izzie with a mischievous grin. "I think I have something for you."

"Seriously?" Izzie had asked, somewhat surprised; she hadn't expected the mystery person to have accomplices. Sandra gave Izzie a piece of paper that was folded exactly like the first note, with her name written in similar chicken scratch on the top. Izzie took the paper and immediately opened it. Compared to the others, it was short:

_RAOBDRO_

"What does it say?" Izzie turned around to see Sandra leaning over the pharmacy counter, clearly curious about the paper's contents.

"Um, it's just…nothing! Nothing," Izzie said quickly, putting the paper in her pocket with the others.

Sandra responded with a pout. "Sorry. Well, good luck, I guess. The person who gave it to me…well, nevermind. Good luck." The pharmacist turned back to the wall lined with shelves full of drugs, and Izzie walked off in the opposite direction.

After a routine appendectomy that Dr. Bailey had allowed Izzie to, for the most part, perform herself, she had cleaned up in the locker room and headed to Joe's. She didn't drink much, but she wasn't on call that night, and it had been a great day worthy of a glass of wine or two.

She sat down at the bar, ordered a glass of white zinfandel, and began trying to unscramble the letters from the note. She assumed that's what was intended, and in any case, it was the only thing that made sense.

"Hey, Iz."

Izzie turned to the left to find the source of the voice, and her heart jumped slightly. It was Alex.

"Hey," was all she could reply. Despite their short-lived relationship—if one could even call it that—she could not help feel a tiny twinge of desire upon seeing his face. There was something about Alex that ceaselessly drew her to him.

"Not on call tonight?" he asked.

"Nope."

"Oh." He turned back to stare at the shelf full of various liquors behind the bar, and Izzie experienced a sharp pang in her chest. This conversation was actually an improvement on the interactions they had been having ever since Rebecca had re-entered and subsequently left Alex's life; in fact, she was surprised he was speaking to her at all. Normally, he would have barely glanced at her before turning away, abhorrence written on every aspect of his face.

At that moment, Izzie couldn't help but be furious with Meredith. She had been the one to imply that she knew about Alex crying to Izzie after Rebecca had been forced into the psychiatric ward, and Alex had apparently not forgiven Izzie for revealing one of his weakest moments to someone else. _Ugh, Meredith. She is sad and dramatic enough on her own without rubbing off on other people._

The ire quickly passed, however, for Izzie was almost incapable of holding a grudge against anyone, and she knew it. She heard a soft _clink_ and was pleased to see that her drink had been placed in front of her. Taking a sip, she suddenly had an idea.

"Alex…"

"What?" he snapped. Izzie ignored his sudden mood change: she was used to it at this point.

"I was wondering…Do you want to help me with something?"

"Unless it involves me scrubbing in on an advanced surgery or that hot chick sitting across the bar, no, I don't."

Again, Izzie ignored his comment. "It's a riddle."

"Seriously, Iz? What is this, third grade?"

"Just help me Alex, please," she implored.

He took a swig from his beer and turned back to face the shelves of liquor. Izzie waited for a few seconds, noticing that he seemed to be contemplating something. When he didn't answer, she mentally kicked herself for believing that he would actually want to help her. _God, he is such a jackass_.

"Fine," Alex said. Izzie turned to face him, surprised but satisfied.

"Well, what is it?" he pressed, obviously impatient, as usual.

Izzie pulled out the note and set it on the bar between them so they could both see it.

"A note? Damn, this really is third grade. Where the hell did you get this?" Alex asked without looking up.

Izzie paused. She didn't really want to tell anyone about this treasure hunt because a miniscule part of her agreed with Alex on it being somewhat childish and silly; yet, she was so certain that it wasn't Alex who was leaving the clues, she saw no reason not to explain it to him.

"I found one in my locker this morning, and they've been leading me to different places around the hospital. It's actually been pretty fun. I think it's George who is doing it."

"O'Malley is definitely pansy enough," Alex said. After staring at the paper for a few more seconds, he finished off his beer and set it down on the bar. Then, without warning, he stood up and started putting his jacket on.

"Where are you going?" Izzie demanded.

"Home. Early shift in the morning," he answered. "Thanks Joe," he added, looking at the bartender, who nodded in response.

"God, Alex, you are such a jackass," Izzie said in annoyance.

He shrugged. "Whatever."

As Alex walked away, Izzie turned back around and stared at her glass of wine before downing it in one gulp. When she took out her wallet to pay the tab, however, she heard Alex's voice again.

"By the way, Iz, the answer is 'O.R. Board.'"

Izzie immediately turned towards the door, but all she saw was an empty entranceway.


End file.
